It has only been a day since the Microsoft-Activision deal was in the news, as CEO Bobby Kotick decided to release his own email discussing Sony to the public.
As regulatory agencies continue to make determinations on whether the Microsoft-Activision merger will be ‘anti-competitive’ in nature, other tensions are brewing regarding Sony. Yesterday, allegations were fired suggesting Sony has a stranglehold on the Japanese market, and Wednesday, Bobby Kotick joined the ‘bash Sony’ side of things by unveiling a big company email to the public about what he thinks of Sony’s continued disparagement of the merger. It’s worth mentioning Bobby Kotick hasn’t spoken publicly since February’s “death valley” comments.
The email begins with Bobby Kotick praising the impact of the deal while mentioning what transpired behind “closed door” regulatory hearings, saying, “During these hearings, Microsoft proposed thoughtful, generous remedies to address regulators’ concerns, and made additional announcements reinforcing their pledge to bring more games to more players around the world. These included contractual commitments to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo, and games to Nvidia, for 10 years,” referring to the many 10-year deals Microsoft has offered companies such as Valve, Nintendo, and Boosteroid.
Bobby Kotick then goes ‘death valley’ in the email, particularly towards Sony, in a long-winded statement:
You may have seen statements from Sony, including an argument that if this deal goes through, Microsoft could release deliberately “buggy” versions of our games on PlayStation. We all know our passionate players would be the first to hold Microsoft accountable for keeping its promises of content and quality parity. And, all of us who work so hard to deliver the best games in our industry care too deeply about our players to ever launch sub-par versions of our games.
Sony has even admitted that they aren’t actually concerned about a Call of Duty agreement—they would just like to prevent our merger from happening. This is obviously disappointing behavior from a partner for almost thirty years, but we will not allow Sony’s behavior to affect our long term relationship. PlayStation players know we will continue to deliver the best games possible on Sony platforms as we have since the launch of PlayStation.
– Activision CEO, Bobby Kotick
The Activision CEO put Sony on blast by suggesting they don’t necessarily want Activision titles, they just don’t want the merger to happen. The whole email can be read over on the Activision blog, Sony has not responded to Kotick’s comments as of this post, and fans should stay tuned, considering this won’t be the last update on this scenario.
